24 October

NEW - Domitian - Roman emperor

Authoritarian ruler was last of the Flavian dynasty

The emperor Domitian, the last of three members of the Flavian dynasty to rule Rome, was born on this day in 51AD.  He was the son of Vespasian and the younger brother of Titus, during whose reigns he had a minor role in the government of the empire that was largely ceremonial. Yet when Titus died suddenly only two years after succeeding his father in 79AD, Domitian quickly presented himself to the Praetorian Guard to be proclaimed emperor.  The official record was that Titus, who had spent virtually the whole of his period on the throne dealing with the aftermath of the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD and a devastating fire in Rome, succumbed to a fever on a trip to the Sabine territories north of the city, but there were suspicions that he had been poisoned by his brother, perhaps in revenge for not having been given the position of power he had anticipated when Titus succeeded Vespasian. At the same time, there were rumours of an affair between Titus and Domitian’s wife, Domitia.  Vespasian and Titus had governed as the heads of a republic, but Domitian decided immediately that he wanted absolute power.   Read more…

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Sir Moses Montefiore - businessman

Italian-born philanthropist who made his fortune in London

The businessman and philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore, who made his fortune in England and became a prominent supporter of Jewish rights, was born in Livorno on this day in 1784.  Born into a Sephardic Jewish family, his grandfather, Moses Vita (Haim) Montefiore, had emigrated from Livorno to London in the 1740s, but regularly returned to Italy, as did other members of the family.  Moses Montefiore was born while his parents, Joseph Elias and Rachel - whose father, Abraham Mocatta, was a powerful bullion broker in London - were in Livorno on business.  Their son was to amass considerable wealth in his working life, accumulating such a fortune on the London stock exchange he was able to retire at 40, but in his youth his family’s situation was so perilous he had to abandon his education without qualifications in order to find a job.  First apprenticed to a firm of grocers and tea merchants, he left to become one of 12 so-called ‘Jew brokers’ in the City of London.  His early days in the city were not without setbacks, notably when a major fraud in 1806 caused him to lose most of his clients’ money.  Read more…

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Tito Gobbi – baritone

Singer found fame on both stage and screen

Opera singer Tito Gobbi was born on this day in 1913 in Bassano del Grappa in the Veneto region.  He had a career that lasted 44 years and sang more than 100 different operatic roles on stages all over the world.  Gobbi also sang in 25 films and towards the end of his career directed opera productions throughout Europe and America.  His singing talent was discovered by a family friend while he was studying law at the University of Padua, who suggested that he studied singing instead. As a result, Gobbi moved to Rome in 1932 to study under the tenor, Giulio Crimi.  At his first audition he was accompanied at the piano by Tilde De Rensis, the daughter of musicologist Raphael De Rensis. She was later to become Gobbi’s wife.  Gobbi made his debut in 1935 in Gubbio, singing the role of Count Rodolfo in Vincenzo Bellini’s La sonnambula, and then went to work for a season at La Scala in Milan as an understudy, which gained him valuable experience.  He made his first appearance on stage there as the Herald in Ildebrando Pizzetti’s Orseolo.  In 1942 he sang the role of Belcore in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at La Scala, conducted by Tullio Serafin.  Read more…

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Luciano Berio – composer

War casualty who became significant figure in Italian music

The avant-garde composer Luciano Berio, whose substantial catalogue of diverse work made him one of the most significant figures in music in Italy in the modern era, was born on this day in 1925 in Oneglia, on the Ligurian coast.  Noted for his innovative combining of voices and instruments and his pioneering of electronic music, Berio composed more than 170 pieces between 1937 and his death in 2003.  His most famous works are Sinfonia, a composition for orchestra and eight voices in five movements commissioned by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1968, and dedicated to the conductor Leonard Bernstein, and his Sequenza series of 18 virtuoso solo works that each featured a different instrument, or in one case a female voice alone.  Berio's musical fascinations included Italian opera, particularly Monteverdi and Verdi, the 20th-century modernism of Stravinsky, the Romantic symphonies of Schubert, Brahms and Mahler, folk songs, jazz and the music of the Beatles.  All these forms influenced him in one way or another and even his most experimental work paid homage to the past.  Read more…

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Domitian - Roman emperor

Authoritarian ruler was last of the Flavian dynasty

Domitian succeeded his brother Titus
as emperor in 81AD

The emperor Domitian, the last of three members of the Flavian dynasty to rule Rome, was born on this day in 51AD.

He was the son of Vespasian and the younger brother of Titus, during whose reigns he had a minor role in the government of the empire that was largely ceremonial. Yet when Titus died suddenly only two years after succeeding his father in 79AD, Domitian quickly presented himself to the Praetorian Guard to be proclaimed emperor.

The official record was that Titus, who had spent virtually the whole of his period on the throne dealing with the aftermath of the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD and a devastating fire in Rome, succumbed to a fever on a trip to the Sabine territories north of the city, but there were suspicions that he had been poisoned by his brother, perhaps in revenge for not having been given the position of power he had anticipated when Titus succeeded Vespasian. At the same time, there were rumours of an affair between Titus and Domitian’s wife, Domitia.

Vespasian and Titus had governed as the heads of a republic, but Domitian decided immediately that he wanted absolute power, moving the centre of government to the imperial court and making it clear that, in his view, Rome should be ruled as a divine monarchy. This put him at odds with the Senate from the outset.

Domitian’s best-known accomplishment was to build the Flavian Palace on the Palatine Hill, which was not the only sumptuous home he lavished on himself. He also ordered the construction of the Villa of Domitian, a vast palace situated 20 km (12 miles) outside Rome in the Alban Hills.

How the Flavian Palace complex would have
looked after its completion in 92AD

Yet he did much to restore the many buildings in Rome that had fallen into disrepair even before Vespasian came to power, due to fire and decay. He rebuilt the Capitol, which had been gutted by fire, built a new temple to Jupiter, a new stadium on the site of what is now Piazza Navona, and a concert hall for musicians and poets. 

He sought to raise the standards of public morality by forbidding male castration, also taking action against the homosexuality that was not rare among senators. He was nonetheless seen as a generous leader and was viewed among those around him, at least early in his reign, as considerate towards his friends and fair while dispensing justice.

Domitian strengthened the economy by revaluing the Roman coinage and enhanced the empire’s borders and fought significant wars in Britain, where his general Agricola attempted to conquer Caledonia (Scotland), and in Dacia, in the area now known as Romania.

The Roman population did not mind the authoritarian nature of Domitian’s rule and he was popular too with the army, whose numbers he considerably strengthened. But he was considered a tyrant by members of the Roman Senate.

Rome's senators saw Domitian as
a despot and tyrant

Domitian was only too aware of this and his relationship with the senate caused him to become increasingly paranoid during his 15-year reign. He had a number of Senators executed for treason and banned free speech in an effort to silence opposition to him.  Seemingly out of jealousy, he had Sullustius Lucullus, governor of Britannia, executed for naming a new type of lance after himself.

What really pushed the senate over the edge, historians surmise, was his insistence on being addressed as dominus et deus - master and god.  Senators and their supporters began to plot against him, culminating in his assassination in September 96, apparently instigated by Domitian's chamberlain Parthenius, possibly with the connivance or at least approval of his wife, who feared for her life because of her husband’s increasing lack of trust in even those closest to him.

Several days before the plot reached its bloody conclusion, Domitian claimed that Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, had appeared to the him in a dream, from which the emperor emerged convinced his death would take place at midday. He became anxious at around that time each day.

On the day he was killed, Domitian repeatedly asked Stephanus, a servant, to tell him what time it was. Unbeknown to him, it was Stephanus who had been charged with carrying out the attack and he lied to the emperor, telling him that it was already late in the afternoon.

Reassured, Domitian went to his desk to work, only for Stephanus, who had been wearing a bandage on his arm for several days, pretending he had been injured, to appear at his side, claiming to have uncovered a plot. He handed the emperor a document, which Domitian read eagerly. While the emperor was distracted, Stephanus ripped off the bandage, under which he had been concealing a knife, and stabbed Domitian in the groin. 

Domitian fought back, drawing his own knife and inflicting a fatal wound on his assailant, but others appeared to finish the job.  His body was taken away and cremated, his nurse Phyllis taking his ashes away to be buried at the Flavian Temple. 

Senators could not contain their delight at his death, proclaimed Marcus Cocceius Nerva, a senior consul, as the new emperor,  and soon ordered that statues and arches Domitian built to celebrate his power were pulled down, his coins melted and his name erased from public records. There was said to be indifference among the public, but the army, who remained loyal to him, grieved his loss, and though their demands that the plotters be punished were initially refused, in time a number of trials and executions took place.

Roman historians such as Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Suetonius portrayed Domitian as a cruel and paranoid tyrant in their writings. Yet the view among many modern historians is that Domitian was a ruthless but efficient autocrat whose cultural, economic, and political policies laid the foundations for a period of peace and stability.

A section of the visible remains of the 
Domus Augustana on Rome's Palatine Hill

Travel tip:

The Flavian Palace,  also known as the Domus Flavia, was completed in 92 AD, its design attributed to Domitian’s master architect, Rabirius. Domus Flavia is the name for the northwestern section of the palace, which contained large rooms for official business, entertaining and ceremonial purposes. The domestic wing to the southeast, where the emperor lived, was called the Domus Augustana.  Running along the eastern side of the Domus Augustana was Domitian’s so-called Hippodrome or Stadium, which was actually an elaborate garden with the appearance of a Roman stadium, although it was too small to accommodate the chariot races of which Domitian was an enthusiastic spectator.  The remains sit atop the Palatine Hill.

The Villa of Domitian enjoyed commanding 
views over beautiful Lago Albano outside Rome

Travel tip:

The Villa of Domitian was a vast and sumptuous villa, built between 81 and 96AD, situated 20km (12 miles) outside Rome, in the Alban Hills, in the ancient territory of Ager Albanus, which contained the city of Alba Longa, overlooking the Lago Albano lake. The remains of the villa are located mostly within the estate of the Pontifical Villas of Castel Gandolfo, the traditional summer residence of the popes, with other relics in the towns of Castel Gandolfo and Albano Laziale. Some are visible in the gardens of the Villa Barberini. 

Also on this day:

1784: The birth of philanthropist and businessman Sir Moses Montefiore

1913: The birth of operatic baritone Tito Gobbi

1925: The birth of the avant-garde composer Luciano Berio

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23 October

Francesco Foscari – Doge of Venice

Ignominious ending to a long and glorious reign

After 34 years as Doge of Venice, Francesco Foscari was abruptly forced to leave office on this day in 1457.  Stripped of his honours, he insisted on descending the same staircase from the Doge’s Palace that he had climbed up in triumph more than a third of a century before, rather than leave through a rear entrance.  Eight days later the former Doge was dead. The story behind the downfall of Foscari and his son, Jacopo, fascinated the poet Lord Byron so much during his visit to Venice in 1816 that he later wrote a five-act play about it.  This play, The Two Foscari: An Historical Tragedy, formed the basis of Verdi’s opera, I Due Foscari, and ensured that the sad story of the father and son was never forgotten.  Francesco Foscari, who was born in 1373, was the 65th Doge of the Republic of Venice. He had previously served the Republic in many roles, including as a member of the Council of Forty and the Council of Ten, Venice’s ruling bodies, and as Procurator of St Mark’s. He was elected Doge in 1423, after defeating the other candidate, Pietro Loredan.  As Doge he led Venice in a long series of wars against Milan.  Read more…

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Alex Zanardi - racing driver and Paralympian

Crash victim who refused to be beaten

Alessandro 'Alex’ Zanardi, a title-winning racing driver who lost both legs in an horrific crash but then reinvented himself as a champion Paralympic athlete, was born on this day in 1966 in the small town of Castel Maggiore, just outside Bologna.  Zanardi was twice winner of the CART series - the forerunner of IndyCar championship of which the marquee event is the Indianapolis 500 - and also had five seasons in Formula One.  But in September 2001, after returning to CART following the loss of his contract with the Williams F1 team, Zanardi was competing in the American Memorial race at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz track in Germany when he lost control of his car emerging from a pit stop and was struck side-on by the car of the Canadian driver Alex Tagliani.  The nose of Zanardi’s car was completely severed as Tagliani's car slammed into Zanardi's cockpit, just behind the front wheel, and the Italian driver suffered catastrophic injuries. Rapid medical intervention saved his life after he lost almost 75 per cent of his blood volume but both legs had to be amputated, one at the thigh and the other at the knee.  Read more…

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Saint John of Capistrano

Patron saint of lawyers and chaplains

The feast day of Saint John of Capistrano (San Giovanni da Capestrano) is being celebrated today in Abruzzo and is marked by Catholics in the rest of Italy and the world.  The patron saint of the legal profession and military chaplains, St John is particularly venerated in Austria, Hungary, Poland and Croatia as well as in different parts of America.  St John was born in Capestrano, about halfway between L’Aquila and Pescara in the Abruzzo region of Italy, in 1386.  He studied law at the University of Perugia and was then appointed Governor of Perugia by King Ladislaus of Naples.  When war broke out between Perugia and the Malatesta family in 1416, John was sent to broker peace, but ended up in prison.  While in captivity he decided not to consummate his recent marriage but to study theology instead.  He entered the Order of Friars Minor at Perugia in 1416 and a few years later began preaching all over Italy as a Franciscan friar.  He was particularly effective in Germany, Austria, Croatia and Poland and, because the churches were not big enough for his audiences, he had to preach in public squares.  Read more…

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22 October

Valeria Golino - actress

Neapolitan starred with Hoffman and Cruise in Rain Man

The actress Valeria Golino, who found international fame when she played opposite Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise in the hugely successful movie Rain Man, was born on this day in 1965 in Naples.  Golino was cast as the girlfriend of Tom Cruise’s character, Charlie Babbitt, in Barry Levinson’s comedy, in which Babbitt’s estranged father dies and leaves most of his multi-million dollar estate to another son, an autistic savant named Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) whose existence Charlie knew nothing about. The 1988 movie won four Oscars and grossed more than $350 dollars. Although Golino was not nominated for her performance in Rain Man, she has won a string of other awards over a career so far spanning almost 35 years.  She is one of only three stars to win Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival on two occasions, for the 1986 drama Storia d’amore (“A Tale of Love”), directed by Francesco Maselli, and for Giuseppe M Gaudino’s 2015 drama Per amor vostro (“For Your Love”).  Golino was close to being selected to star opposite Richard Gere in another massive US hit, Pretty Woman, making it to the final audition stage for the 1990 romantic comedy. Read more…

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Soave - an Italian classic wine

How the dry white from the Veneto earned its DOC status

Soave - at one time the world's most popular Italian wine - was officially granted a DOC classification on this day in 1968.  The DOC status - which stands for Denominazione di Origine Controllata - was introduced midway through the last century as part of a series of laws designed to safeguard the quality and authenticity of Italian wines.  Winegrowers had been pushing for such regulation because the increasing popularity of Italian wines around the world was impacting on quality as more and more producers sprang up to meet demand.  Soave was a case in point.  Originally limited to a small area of just 2,720 acres (1,100 hectares) in the hills to the north of the small towns of Soave and Monteforte d'Alpone, roughly 25km east of Verona in the Veneto region, production spread rapidly to an area more than six times as large.  The biggest demand was from the United States, which developed a taste for Italian wines in the boom years that followed the end of the Second World War.  Of the huge volume of imported bottles that arrived on ships from Europe, Soave was the most popular.  Read more…

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Giovanni Martinelli – tenor

Singer made his fame abroad

One of the most famous tenors of the 20th century, Giovanni Martinelli, was born on this day in 1885 in Montagnana in the province of Padua in the Veneto.  Martinelli began his career playing the clarinet in a military band and then studied as a singer with Giuseppe Mandolini in Milan. He made his professional debut at the Teatro del Verme in Milan in the title role of Giuseppe Verdi's Ernani in 1910.  Martinelli became famous for singing the role of Dick Johnson in Giacomo Puccini's La Fanciulla del West, which he performed in Rome, Brescia, Naples, Genoa, Monte Carlo and also at La Scala in Milan.  He played Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca at the Royal Opera House in London and took on the same role for his first American engagement in 1913. That same year Martinelli portrayed Pantagruel in the world premiere of Jules Massenet’s Panurge in Paris.  He attracted favourable reviews when he played Rodolfo in Puccini's La bohème at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He went on to sing 36 different roles for the theatre over 32 seasons.  In 1937 Martinelli returned to London to sing opposite the English soprano Eva Turner at Covent Garden.  Read more…

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Salvatore Di Vittorio – composer and conductor  

Musician has promoted his native Palermo throughout the world

Salvatore Di Vittorio, founding music director and conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of New York, was born on this day in 1967 in Palermo in Sicily.  Also a composer, Di Vittorio has written music in the style of the early 20th century Italian composer, Ottorino Respighi, who, in turn, based his compositions on the music he admired from the 16th and 17th centuries.  Di Vittorio has been recognised by music critics as respectful of the ancient Italian musical tradition and also as an emerging, leading interpreter of the music of Ottorino Respighi.  He began studying music when he was a child with his father, Giuseppe, who introduced him to the operas of Verdi and Puccini. He went on to study composition at the Manhattan School of Music and Philosophy at Columbia University.  He has since worked with orchestras all over the world and composed music for them to perform and has also taught music in New York.  In 2007, Di Vittorio was invited by Elsa and Gloria Pizzoli, Respighi’s great nieces, to edit and complete several of the composer’s early works, including his first Violin Concerto, composed in 1903.  Read more…

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21 October

Domenichino - Baroque master

Artist whose talents rivalled Raphael

The painter Domenico Zampieri, in his era spoken of in the same breath as Raphael, was born on this day in 1581 in Bologna.  Better known as Domenichino (“Little Domenico”), the nickname he picked up early in his career on account of his small stature, he painted in classical and later Baroque styles in Rome, Bologna and Naples.  Noted for the subtle, almost serene lighting and understated colours of his compositions, he painted portraits, landscapes, religious and mythological scenes and had a prolific output. Among his most notable works were significant frescoes commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese for the Badia (monastery) at Grottaferrata, outside Rome, and for Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini at the Villa Belvedere (also known as the Villa Aldobrandini) in nearby Frascati, as well as Scenes from the Life of Saint Cecilia at the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, not far from Piazza Navona, in Rome itself.  Domenichino’s paintings can be seen in art galleries in many countries, with the largest single collection held by the Louvre in Paris.  One of his most celebrated paintings, the depiction of St John the Evangelist that he worked on between 1621 and 1629, has been described as a “masterpiece epitomising the grandeur and nobility of Roman Baroque". Read more…

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Giuseppe Pinelli - anarchist

His 'accidental death' inspired classic Dario Fo play

Giuseppe 'Pino' Pinelli, the railway worker from Milan who inspired Dario Fo to write his classic play, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, was born on this day in 1928.  Pinelli fell to his death from a fourth floor window of the Milan Questura - the main police station - on December 15, 1969, three days after a bomb exploded at a bank in Piazza Fontana in Milan, killing 17 people and wounding 88.  A known anarchist during a period of growing political and social tension in Italy, Pinelli had been picked up for questioning, along with a number of other activists, over the Piazza Fontana bomb.  The story put out first by police was that Pinelli had jumped, willing to take his own life rather than face prosecution. Yet three police officers who had been interrogating Pinelli were put under investigation.  No action was taken against them and later a judge ruled that Pinelli's death had been accidental. This time the suggestion was that he had fainted, lost his balance and fallen through the open window, which seemed to many to be somewhat far-fetched.  It did not convince his supporters and when one of his interrogators, Commissioner Luigi Calabresi, was shot dead on his way to work in May 1972, two left-wing activists were convicted of his murder. Read more…

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Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta

Cousin of Italy's wartime monarch died in a POW camp

Prince Amedeo, Duke of Aosta, who died in a British prisoner-of-war camp after leading the defeated Italian Army in the East Africa Campaign of the Second World War, was born on this day in 1898 in Turin.  After distinguished military service in the First World War and seeing action as a pilot in the pacification of Italian Libya in the early 1930s, Amedeo had been appointed by Mussolini as Viceroy of Ethiopia and Governor-General of Italian East Africa in 1937, replacing the controversial Marshal Rodolfo Graziani.  Italy’s entry into the Second World War on the side of Germany in June 1940 meant the Duke of Aosta became the commander of the Italian forces against the British in what became known as the East African Campaign.  As such, he oversaw the Italian advances into the Sudan and Kenya and the Italian invasion of British Somaliland.  However, when the British launched a counter-invasion early the following year, the Italians were put on the defensive and after fighting desperately to protect their territory were beaten in the Battle of Keren. The rest of Eritrea, including the port of Massawa, fell soon afterwards.  Read more…

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20 October

NEW - Jacopo della Quercia - sculptor

Innovative work said to have influenced Michelangelo

The sculptor Jacopo della Quercia, regarded as one of the most original artists in his field in the early 15th century and an influence on a number of leading figures in the Renaissance including Michelangelo, died on this day in 1438. Della Quercia’s most notable works include the Fonte Gaia in Piazza del Campo in Siena, the sculptures around the Porta Magna of the church of San Petronio in Bologna, the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto in Lucca Cathedral, and Zacharias in the Temple, a bronze relief for the baptismal font in the church of San Giovanni in Siena.  His attention to proportion and perspective gave his creations a particularly lifelike quality and his innovative work put him at the forefront of his generation.  Art historians consider that his work marked a transition in Italian art from Gothic to Renaissance style that was taken forward by Michelangelo and contemporaries such as Francesco di Giorgio and Niccolò dell’Arca.  Born, it is thought, in 1374, he was baptised as Jacopo di Pietro d’Agnolo di Guarnieri.  He took his working name from his home village, Quercia Grossa - now Quercegrossa - situated a few kilometres outside Siena.  Read more…

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Mara Venier - television presenter

Former actress became famous as face of Sunday afternoon

Mara Venier, a familiar face on Italian television for more than 35 years, was born on this day in 1950 in Venice.  The former actress, who made her big-screen debut in 1973, is best known for presenting the long-running Sunday afternoon variety show Domenica In, which has been a fixture on the public TV channel Rai Uno since 1976.  Venier, born Mara Povoleri, hosted the show for nine seasons in four stints between 1993 and 2014. Only Pippo Baudo, something of a legendary figure in Italian television, has presented more editions.  Fronting Domenica In, which was on air for an incredible six hours, was not only a test of stamina for the presenter but came with a huge sense of responsibility. In fact, holding the attention of the viewers was a patriotic duty, the show’s format having been conceived by the Italian government, faced with the global oil crisis in the 1970s, as something to tempt citizens to stay at home rather than use precious fuel for their cars.  Venier had been a movie actress, known largely to audiences in Italy, for two decades before she was invited to host Domenica In.  Read more…

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Claudio Ranieri - football manager

Title-winning Leicester City boss 

Football manager Claudio Ranieri was born on this day in 1951 in Rome.  Ranieri, who won the English Premier League in 2016 with rank outsiders Leicester City, has managed 18 clubs in four countries in a 30-year career in coaching.  He also had a stint in charge of the Greece national team.  Among the teams he has coached are a host of big names - Internazionale, Juventus, Roma, Napoli and Fiorentina in Italy, Atletico Madrid and Valencia in Spain, Monaco in France and Chelsea in England.  He has won titles in lower divisions as well as Italy's Coppa Italia and the Copa del Rey in Spain but until Leicester defied pre-season odds of 5,000-1 to win the Premier League, a major league championship had eluded him.  He had finished second three times, with Chelsea, Roma and Monaco.  Before turning to coaching, Ranieri was a player for 14 seasons. He began in Serie A with home-town club Roma, but enjoyed more success in the lower divisions, enjoying promotion twice with the Calabrian club Catanzaro, where he spent the biggest part of his career, and once each with the Sicilian teams Catania and Palermo.  Read more…

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Dado Moroni - jazz musician

Self-taught pianist recorded first album at 17

The renowned jazz musician Edgardo ‘Dado’ Moroni was born on this day in 1962 in Genoa.  Moroni, who learned at the feet of some of the greats of American jazz music in Italian clubs in the 1980s and 90s, has recorded more than 25 albums, having released his first when he was only 17.  He has appeared as a guest on many more albums and built such a reputation as a pianist and composer that he was able to become part of the American jazz scene himself in the 1990s, when he lived in New York.  Moroni attributes his love of jazz music to his father’s passion for the genre, which meant that he grew up listening to the likes of Earl Hines, Fats Waller and Count Basie.  Using a piano his parents had bought for his sister, Monica, he taught himself to play many of the songs he heard on the record player, receiving his first informal tuition from his mother, who played the accordion.  Formal piano lessons were arranged for him with the Genoa jazz pianist Flavio Crivelli, who introduced him to the music of Charlie Parker, Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie and contemporary pianists like Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal and Oscar Peterson.  Read more…

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Jacopo della Quercia - sculptor

Innovative work said to have influenced Michelangelo

Jacopo della Quercia was a leading
influence on many artists

The sculptor Jacopo della Quercia, regarded as one of the most original artists in his field in the early 15th century and an influence on a number of leading figures in the Renaissance including Michelangelo, died on this day in 1438.

Della Quercia’s most notable works include the Fonte Gaia in Piazza del Campo in Siena, the sculptures around the Porta Magna of the church of San Petronio in Bologna, the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto in Lucca Cathedral, and Zacharias in the Temple, a bronze relief for the baptismal font in the church of San Giovanni in Siena.

His attention to proportion and perspective gave his creations a particularly lifelike quality and his innovative work put him at the forefront of his generation.  Art historians consider that his work marked a transition in Italian art from Gothic to Renaissance style that was taken forward by Michelangelo and contemporaries such as Francesco di Giorgio and Niccolò dell’Arca.

Born, it is thought, in 1374, he was baptised as Jacopo di Pietro d’Agnolo di Guarnieri.  He took his working name from his home village, Quercia Grossa - now Quercegrossa - situated a few kilometres outside Siena.  He came from a family of craftsmen; his father, Piero d’Angelo, was also a sculptor, and his brother Priamo was a painter.

The tomb of Ilaria del Carretto in Lucca cathedral
brought together Gothic and Classical styles

Jacopo’s early influences are likely to have been the paintings of Nicola Pisano and Arnolfi di Cambio in Siena’s duomo, and the ancient Roman statues and monuments exhibited in the cemetery at Lucca, where he moved with his family at the age of 12. 

His career began to gather pace in his early twenties. It is thought Della Quercia's earliest work appears in the Lucca cathedral, in which a statue of St John the Evangelist, an impressive Man of Sorrows at the Altar of the Sacrament, and a relief on the tomb of St Aniello. 

In 1401 he entered a competition to design the bronze doors for Florence's Baptistery, along with Lorenzo Ghiberti and Filippo Brunelleschi, who would go on to design the cathedral’s famous dome.  Ghiberti won but the exposure enhanced Della Quercia’s standing further and in 1403 he sculpted the marble Virgin and Child for the Ferrara cathedral, winning considerable acclaim. 

Returning to Lucca in 1406, he received a commission from the city's ruler, Paolo Guinigi, to begin work at the tomb of his second wife Ilaria del Carretto in the Lucca cathedral. The end result, in which an elegantly dressed woman rests on top of a sarcophagus decorated with Roman-style winged cherubs, combines elements of Gothic and Classical styles, and is seen as signalling the imminent dawn of the golden age of Renaissance art.

The Porta Magna of the church of
San Petronio in Bologna

For all his brilliance, Della Quercia had a tendency to frustrate his clients by accepting too many commissions simultaneously, which led to him working on one at the expense of another.  For example, while the Fonte Gaia was completed in five years between 1414 and 1419, he may have been commissioned to do the work as early as 1406, certainly 1409.  At the same time, however, he was working on the statue of an apostle for the exterior of the cathedral at Lucca, the Trenta altar for the Church of San Frediano in Lucca, and tomb slabs for Lorenzo Trenta and his wife.

He may have started working in earnest on the Siena fountain later still had he not had to flee Lucca in haste in 1413, having been accused of crimes including robbery and rape for which one of his assistants spent three years in jail.

The original commission was to build a new fountain in Siena’s Piazza del Campo, to replace one that featured a statue of the pagan goddess Venus that had been blamed for an outbreak of plague in the city.  Della Quercia came up with a rectangular fountain built in white marble, dedicated to the Virgin, with statues carved into the three sides. It remains an attraction for tourists, although what they see now is a copy by Tito Sarrocchi, installed in the 19th century. The original is in the loggia of the town hall.

Similarly, Della Quercia was commissioned to create two gilt bronze reliefs for the baptismal font in San Giovanni in Siena but completed only one, the second being assigned to Donatello.

The design of the round-arched Porta Magna of the San Petronio church in Bologna, for which he accepted a commission in 1425, would keep him busy for much of the last 13 years of his life and it is considered by some to be his masterwork. 

The sculpture around the portal features 10 scenes from Genesis, including The Creation of Eve, five scenes from the early life of Christ, reliefs of the prophets and the statues of the Virgin and Child with Saints Petronius and Ambrose,  The sense of depth in the work, on which he was assisted by artists from his Bolognese workshop such as Cino di Bartolo, has been compared with the paintings of Masaccio.  Michelangelo, who visited Bologna in 1494, conceded that his Genesis on the Sistine Chapel ceiling was based on Della Quercia’s scenes. 

While working at the Porta Magna, he was asked to design the Loggia di San Paolo, close to the Piazza del Campo, but died before he could finish the commission.  In 1435 he was knighted by the government of Siena and appointed to a prestigious role overseeing Siena Cathedral.

Della Quercia’s biography is included in Giorgio Vasari’s seminal work, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. After his death, he was buried in the San Agostino church in Siena.

The Fonte Gaia is situated in the historic
Piazza del Campo in Siena

Travel tip:

Siena is perhaps best known as the venue for the historic horse race, the Palio di Siena. The race takes place in the Piazza del Campo, a shell-shaped open area which is regarded as one of Europe’s finest medieval squares. It was established in the 13th century as an open marketplace on a sloping site between the three communities that eventually merged to form the city of Siena.  The city's cathedral, with a pulpit designed by Nicola Pisani, is considered a masterpiece of Italian Romanesque-Gothic architecture.

The Basilica di San Petronio is the largest
brick built Gothic church in the world

Travel tip:

The Basilica di San Petronio is the main church of Bologna, located in Piazza Maggiore in the centre of the city. It is the largest brick-built Gothic church in the world. Building work began on the church in 1390 and it was dedicated to San Petronio, who had been the Bishop of Bologna in the fifth century. The facade was designed by Domenico da Varignana and started in 1538 by Giacomo Ranuzzi but was never finished. Despite being Bologna’s most important church, San Petronio is not the city’s cathedral. This is the Duomo di San Pietro, which stands nearby on Via Indipendenza. In the 16th century, the basilica staged the coronation of Charles V to Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement VII.

Also on this day:

1950: The birth of television presenter Mara Venier

1951: The birth of football manager Claudio Ranieri

1962: The birth of jazz musician Dado Moroni

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